Sandbox / Sensory Abuse Wick Check

Sensory Abuse is a trope about creators intentionally, well, abusing the audience's senses. It's No Video Example's Please, but otherwise allows Real Life examples and the like. However, the nature of the trope lends itself to complaining. This check will see not only how abused this trope is, but if it has enough in-universe examples to justify making it IUEO.

We need 50 wicks. They'll be alphabetized, and the comments/potholes will be bolded. I'll also keep a separate count of examples that only include one of the senses, as potential split fodder.

Wicks: 50/50

Results:

• Real Life / Meta, Non-Complaining: 18/50, or 36%
• Real Life / Meta, Complaining: 7/50, or 14%
• In-Universe: 6/50, or 12%
• Unsure: 3/50, or 6%
• ZCE: 14/50, or 28%
• Other: 2/50, or 4%

• Only one sense: 29/58%

---

Real-life / Meta, non-complaining

1. Writer Revolt: Lou Reed supposedly recorded Metal Machine Music, a double album of industrial screeching, in the hope that his record label would drop him.
2. Film.Enter The Void: Aside from the Epileptic Flashing Lights listed above, various sounds also play a role in the movie's tone. The ambient score assembled by Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter incorporates excerpts from two musique concrète albums by electroacoustic composer Jean-Claude Éloy, which certainly employ this trope as part of their composition by layering field recordings of Tokyo nightlife on top of "electronic and concrete sounds.
3. Film.Paranormal Activity: The ominous rumbling sound that accompanies the demon, which can get really loud when it's getting serious.
4. Funny.Lonelygirl15: —->Taylor: Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. Haven't you been paying attention? (extremely loud voiceover)^* Seriously, turn your volume down Sister equals slut.
5. Music.Raw Power: The intention behind Iggy Pop's extremely loud mixing of the album. Do not listen to Iggy's mix cranked up on headphones unless you want your ears ringing afterward. His original idea was for an album that would physically hurt people when it came out of the speakers.
6. MythologyGag.Holo Funk: Rushia in hololive is infamously well known for her incredibly loud screams that contrasts heavily with her more soft-spoken regular voice.
7. NightmareFuel.Skrillex: His remix of "Born This Way", where the central melody is made from manipulation of what seems to be somebody screaming...But you can't really tell what it is. Also the biggest case of Mood Whiplash of any of his music period, since the rest of the song is quite normal.
8. Ride.Revenge Of The Mummy: The roller coaster portion of the attraction features intense strobes combined with flashing images of undead spirits, while the vehicle is zooming by at 45-or-so mph.
9. Series.Jam: While some sketches were quietly dull, a few were full of it. The 'Robert Kilroy Silk' sketch featured a lookalike of Kilroy experiencing a nervous breakdown in a supermarket, accompanied by dramatic, tribal music, while an alarm repeatedly beeps in the background. It ends with a looped clip of the real Kilroy calmly saying 'Take care of each other', which gradually turns into atonal droning.
10. UsefulNotes.Trigger: Seizure triggers are far more rare but are the other type of trigger that can cause direct harm: the viewing of a pattern or flashing lights or colors will induce an epileptic seizure in a small segment of the population, which may be life-threatening. The only people who intentionally post these with the intent of causing a seizure are Trolls, though inadvertent posting of a seizure-inducing video or image can occasionally happen when the poster doesn't live with epilepsy (or with epilepsy triggered by visual imagery) and isn't aware that the image or video could have that effect. Normally, if you are posting a video with flashing lights or colors (or extremely fast movement or dizzying patterns) it is seen as good Netiquette to post a seizure trigger warning and avoid autoplay.
11. VideoGame.Covetous: The final three levels feature progressively worse sensory assaults: the seventh stage replaces the music with a loud, high-pitched tone, the eighth has Epileptic Flashing Lights in the background, and the final stage turns both of these things up to eleven with the tone becoming higher and louder while the flashing becomes much more intense.
12. VideoGame.Sad Satan: The game's main schtick is that its visuals and audio are butchered and specifically tailored to make you feel physically ill. It's terrifyingly effective.
13. VideoGame.Superhot: Firing a gun while standing still will basically blind and deafen you for two seconds.
14. WebAnimation.Mokeys Show: Usually while being really loud while still managing to be entertaining.
15. WebVideo.Caddicarus: Pops up quite a bit, usually through extensive visual effects and suddenly increased volume.
16. WebVideo.Sethical: Suddenly Shouting: With Sensory Abuse. Certain videos have a extreme sound discrepancy due to video process errors.
17. WesternAnimation.The Christmas Tree: The scene in which Mrs. Mavilda fires Judy. The former's screaming is so loud she breaks the volume levels of her microphone.
18. YMMV.Wipeout: Fusion's intro is even more of a doozy. Not only it features sudden flashing lights that would cause a Jump Scare, but it also has a sample of a child laughing in both the beginning and the end of the opening.

Real-life / Meta, complaining / "Ear-rape"

1. Horrible.Music Soundtracks: Monster a-Go Go already has an entry in the film category, but the score they gave it is just the icing on the cake. To elaborate, it consists mainly of sparse, jangly Scare Chords played on a Fender Rhodes electric piano and amplified to distortion; it's atonal, harsh, and probably meant to be creepy, but it just gets annoying after a while. And as if that weren't bad enough, the film's theme song suffers from bizarre, repetitive lyrics, and is recorded in such poor quality that it's often hard to make out what said lyrics even are. The composer/musician responsible is not listed in the credits, perhaps out of shame.
2. Music.Negativland: Negativland are arguably the first people to ever do ear-rape. A Big 10-8 Place and 'The ABC's of Anarchism'' both have loud distorted ear-rape-esque effects. The use of "Ear Rape" seems pretty complain-y to me, so I'll put it here.
3. VideoGame.Post Void: Dear God in heaven. The discordant music, trippy art style, flashing lights, and garish colors on top of the incredibly frenetic gamplay makes for a very stressful experience.
4. WebAnimation.The Problem Solverz: Much of the show's criticism comes from its bright color scheme and crude character designs. Not only is a crude design not really abuse, but this example in and of itself seems somewhat critical.
5. YMMV.Bully: THANKS FOR A GREAT DATE JIMMY! ^Explanation An infamous quote said by Pinky from the mission Carnival Date - Due to an audio glitch, many of Pinky's lines in the missions are distorted in a manner similar to "ear rape". This is the most noticeable one. Pothole is in the note.
6. YMMV.Inanimate Insanity: The Scrappy: While generally well-liked in their original home series, Brawl of the Objects, Party Hat's guest appearance in "The Great Escape" was not well-received. The least offensive aspect is that the scene they're in is a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, but more importantly, they act like an Entitled Bastard towards MePhone, and their crying tantrum is absolutely ear-grating.
7. YMMV.The Rite Of Spring: Vindicated by History: Thanks mainly to Fantasia. However, it was still seen as the weakest piece owing mostly to its length, unnerving visuals, and jarring music - though people are much more forgiving of it these days.

In-Universe

1. Literature.NES Godzilla Creepypasta: During Zenith, the music for the first part of the "KILL" level is a cacophony of NES sounds.
2. Literature.Nightmare Beings: The Disco Yeti is a sleep-paralysis demon that inflicts Sensory Abuse upon its victim with its bright colors and flashing lights.
3. PlayingWith.Heart Is An Awesome Power: Rainblast can change the color of an object close or near to him. While the ability to grab attention or sneak away is rather nice, changing the color of something rapidly tends to cause headaches and seizures. Not to mention that he can do things like blinding an enemy by turning their coroneas opaque or erasing and rewriting text.
4. Recap.OT Kiloto The Minoto: Smore expresses his gratitude and Printer proceeds to get on with the elimination but wait, El Nudelo Spider wants to rejoin the show. This of course earns fierce objection with additional ear-splitting screaming to the spider's wishes.
5. Series.Eigen Kweek: When Chantal discovers the hangar, she gets overpowered by the brother of "Den Hollander", who plays Will Tura's Greatest Hits to her on repeat to drown out the voices of everyone involved in the weed harvest. While he thinks that she's lucky that she gets to listen to Will Tura all day, Chantal definitely considered it a form of (psychological) torture after she was freed, as the songs remained stuck in her head.
6. Myth.Polybius: According to some tellings, the game includes lots of flashing, colorful backgrounds. Some even add that the game includes some weird optical illusions, too. A fake game, so it goes here.

Unsure

1. NightmareFuel.Petscop: Episode 16, just in general. In addition to the completely static and silent opening suddenly turning into some sort of warning screen with an uncharacteristic Sensory Abuse siren, the game seems to be tracking someone's (presumably Paul or Belle) movements in the real world.
2. VideoGame.Dusk: In the Escher Labs, you get the red key from what appears to be a ship made of viscera and bone, populated by Wendigos and speeding through a black, red-streaked void. The background noise is an unceasing combination of scream and gale-force wind. When you teleport back out, the cacophony instantly cuts out, replaced with the dim buzzing of the lab's fluorescent lights. Putting it here since it reads more like an audience reaction, but I'll note that I'm not entirely sure.
3. VideoGame.Yume2kki: The removed TV channel features flashing lights and loud, garbled static.

ZCE

1. Creator.Hoffy1138: A few of his poops have ear rape, most notably "Aladdin and the Stupid Princess".
2. Music.Panda Bear: Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper has more pop-ish songs, with some Sensory Abuse thrown in.
3. Music.Richard D James Album: Mood Whiplash: The album goes to different moods each and every track. For example, the extremely abrasive "Peek 824545201" being followed by the blissful and calm "Fingerbib"...which is in turn followed by another abrasive song, "Carn Marth".
4. Music.Yeezus: The album's abrasive nature can be this to some; special note goes to the start of the album.
5. NightmareFuel.Dot Flow: From version 0.19 on, the "Vomitgirl" area, the imagery and sounds make it very uncomfortable to explore. There are several cryptic statues of faceless women, a red, pulsating mass can be seen in the background, and if you enter a hole, you are greeted with a huge statue of a vomiting girl and a music track that may count as Sensory Abuse.
6. PlayingWith.Dark Reprise: In a Turn Based Strategy game, the music alternates between triumphant during the heroes' turns, dark during the enemies' turns and "weird" during neutral-units' turns; all without skipping a beat.
7. Recap.Crash Thompson: "Nope. Guys, you know how I usually do with noise rock that's this chaotic and this crazy. This is not black midi, this is just chaos."
8. Series.Brass Eye: Used at times, especially in some of the Ad Bumpers.
9. Trivia.Aphex Twin: The man loves messing with the audience and anyone who tries to interview him. For example: (Subbullet) The amount of Nightmare Fuel and Sensory Abuse to be found in some of his music and videos.
10. Trivia.Knife Party: Ever since their rise to popularity, many producers have attempted to emulate their Sensory Abuse style of electro house, with varied results.
11. VideoGame.Ultrakill: Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The soundtrack for 1-2, "A Complete And Utter Destruction of the Senses". In what way?
12. WebVideo.Hurricoaster: Several wicks, all stating that they engage in this often, but it otherwise goes unexplained.
13. WebVideo.Techmoan: Mat refuses to buy or even look at a laser turntable because while a turntable that doesn't make physical contact with records is amazing, the price is astronomical, you have to thoroughly clean the records because it can't handle dust, and it can only play black records, not coloured, clear, or picture ones^note Mat has a sizeable collection of all three, including a custom Pedant picture disc with "Cuba Baion" recorded on it, which he sometimes uses because "Cuba Baion" is both associated with the channel and well out of copyright. He does have black records, but he still wouldn't be able to play half his record collection on a laser turntable, making it a complete non-starter even if price and noise weren't a problem.
14. Wrestling.WWE Mae Young Classic: Kay Lee Ray's theme, though less than her indie themes which all pretty much sounded like this.

Other

1. Creator.Chicken Pika: Generally averted; his Poops are mostly focused on sentence-mixing, with very little use of effects compared to most other Poopers.
2. Funny.RT Game: Making a whole part of the level unviewable by summoning several suns. This just feels like a misplaced pothole.

---

Only one sense involved

1. Writer Revolt: Noise
2. Film.Paranormal Activity: Noise
3. Funny.Lonelygirl15: Just noise
4. Literature.NES Godzilla Creepypasta: Just noise
5. Music.Negativland: Just noise
6. Music.Panda Bear: Just noise
7. Music.Raw Power: Noise
8. Music.Yeezus: Just noise
9. MythologyGag.Holo Funk: Just noise
10. NightmareFuel.Dot Flow: Noise
11. NightmareFuel.Skrillex: Just noise
12. PlayingWith.Dark Reprise: Noise
13. PlayingWith.Heart Is An Awesome Power: Seems to be something like Epileptic Flashing Lights
14. Recap.Crash Thomspon: Noise
15. Recap.OT Kiloto The Minoto: Just noise
16. Series.Eigen Kweek: Just noise
17. Series.Jam: Just noise
18. Trivia.Knife Party: Noise
19. VideoGame.Dusk: Just noise
20. Myth.Polybius: Seems to be something like Epileptic Flashing Lights
21. VideoGame.Ultrakill: Noise
22. WebAnimation.Mokeys Show: Just noise
23. WebVideo.Sethical: Just noise
24. WesternAnimation.The Christmas Tree: Noise
25. Wrestling.WWE Mae Young Classic: Noise
26. YMMV.Bully: Noise
27. YMMV.Inanimate Insanity: Noise
28. YMMV.The Rite Of Spring: Noise
29. YMMV.Wipeout: Epileptic Flashing Lights